


She's Still Here

by sophisticatedloserchick



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Loss of Child, Married Couple, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 11:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19004773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophisticatedloserchick/pseuds/sophisticatedloserchick
Summary: Barry and Iris struggle to deal with losing Nora in the weeks afterwards. Reaction to 5x22.





	She's Still Here

Days after Nora disappears in their arms Iris hasn’t left the house.

She alternates between sleeping and crying as the hole in her chest only grows bigger as time went on. She feels like she lost a part of herself she can never get back. She can barley think let alone move. Which is why she seals herself away from the world hiding in the safety of her bedroom.

Late one afternoon, Iris had long ago lost track what day of the week it is, she wakes up to the sound of a phone beeping. Automatically she reaches for her phone assuming its Barry. He leaves the loft intermittently to work shifts at CCPD or patrol the city as The Flash. But he checks on her regularly wanting to make sure she’s okay. However her phone is nothing but a black screen, no messages or voicemails waiting for her.

Still in a fog Iris gets up to follow the sound of the beeping. Out of her bedroom, down the stairs, into the kitchen where the beeping gets louder. There on the counter hidden behind a potted plant is Nora’s phone, beeping with incoming messages.

Iris stands frozen looking at the phone. The screen lit up and Iris can see the lock screen picture. Its the three of them from when they went skating together. They all have big smiles on their faces as they huddle in close, cheeks flushed red from the coldness of the ice rink. Iris remembered how excited Barry and Nora were to go skating as a family. Her competitive daughter wanting so badly to go as fast as her dad even as her legs wobbled with uncertainty. Iris can still remember how it felt reaching out to hold Nora steady, helping her keep balance until she became more confident to skate on her own.

Before Iris even realized it tears were tracking down her face.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there crying only that the screen of Nora’s phone eventually fades to black and she distantly hear Barry walks through the front door.

Barry doesn’t take long to reach her. His arms wrapping around her body pulling her close to him. Yet Iris feels so numb that she can barely feel the warmth of his body. Her head so filled with noise that she couldn’t hear the words of comfort he whispered in her ear. She was wrapped in Barry’s protective embrace but she had never felt more alone.

The next day Iris notices the phone is gone taken by Barry to somewhere she can’t see it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two weeks after Nora disappears Iris goes back to work.

Barry keeps telling her to take all the time she needs. He gently reminds her that there’s no rush to getting back to her routine. Iris loves her husband and appreciates his concern but after everything she’s been through she needs some normalcy in her life.

His worry for her is also becoming harder to see. When Barry looks at her Iris can see fear in his green eyes. As if he’s worried one wrong move and she’ll completely shatter into pieces. She almost feels hurt that he doesn’t think she can take care of herself. Iris knows she’s not a superhero, she didn’t have superspeed of a bullet proof body but she has always considered herself to be a strong person. At the very least she’s capable of dealing with her pain on her own.

Which is why Iris figures the best way for her to return to something resembling her life is going back to work.

So one morning she wakes up and goes through her normal routine. Gets showered, puts on her work clothes, does her hair and make up, puts on her shows and heads out the door.

For the first few blocks Iris felt good to be outside again. For the past weeks she closed off the entire world to linger on her loss. She didn’t care what day it was, what time it was, none of that mattered to her anymore. But now finding herself part of the hustle and the bustle of the city as everyone is heading to work, to school, to move forward with their lives Iris feels little bit more like herself.

She heads into Jitters to get her usual coffee and chocolate croissant. Her eyes idly drifting around looking at customers drinking their morning as she waits in line. Then without thinking to stop herself she notices the poster advertising the X-S coffee drink.

In a instant Iris’s mind rushes back to the day she came here with Barry and Nora. Iris remembers how proud they were to see Central City embracing their daughter as their hero. And despite Nora’s protestations and eye rolling at their excitement Iris could tell she was pleased too with getting a drink of her own.

There was so many things Iris wanted to do with Nora. So may experiences she wanted the two of them to share. In their eagerness Barry and her had made a rather long list that they showed her on the day they got coffee. The two of them couldn’t wait to start checking things off.

In the end they didn’t have enough time with her. A reality Nora had long accepted before they did even back then. 

“Do you want to order one?” The barista asked interrupting Iris.

“Huh…sorry what?” Iris blinked out of her thoughts.

“An X-S double shot,” The barista gave her a weird look. “So do you want to order one?”

“No, no I don’t think so,” Iris stumbled over her words.

Iris gave her regular order and while she paid the barista kept talking.

“I wonder what happened to her,” The barista went on. “No one has seen her in weeks. She was everywhere and now she’s gone.”

And now she’s gone.

Those words hit Iris harder than she expected her too. The feeling of a newly healed wound being split and exposed all over again.

But Iris held it together because she did not want to fall apart. She needed to force herself to be strong. After getting her drink she went to work. Because despite what pain she kept telling herself what she needed to do was get back to normal.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A month goes by and Iris feels like things are getting better bit by bit.

She’s still sad, some days prove to be harder than others, but for the most part she’s getting through her days holding herself together.

Barry still watches her with concerned eyes when he thinks she’s not looking. Sometimes when they’re alone he seems like he wants to confess something to her but keeps holding himself back. Iris wants to push but at the same time worried that pushing him might cause him more hurt.

‘With care’ is how they’ve been treating each other the past month. Both worried how the other is coping but too afraid to ask. There’s a distance between them now that Iris doesn’t know how to deal with. Usually when there’s an issue the two will talk it out, or even yell it out, but this silence that keeps stretching out between them is foreign to her.

But slowly they are getting through each day a little easier and for now Iris thinks that’s enough.

For the first time in a long time they actually go out together. Nothing major just a Sunday dinner at her dad’s place but its still more than they’ve done in a long time.

Most of the night goes great with eating her dad’s famous baked macaroni. The conversation is kept simple and light with them talking about work or the latest movie they’ve seen. Iris even finds herself laughing at her dad’s jokes which has Barry seemingly bursting with happiness as he watches her.

It isn’t until towards the end of the night that things start to go astray.

Iris and Cecile are in the living room with glasses of wine as Iris eagerly listens to all the latest gossip from the precinct. Barry and her dad left ten minutes ago to get dessert ready though Iris finds it weird she doesn’t hear them moving about in the kitchen. After another five minutes Iris gets up under the pretense of refilling her glass of wine when she spots them at the end of the hallway.

Her dad is handing Barry an unmarked paper bag. From her husband’s face she can tell he’s upset but not angry. Her dad is talking to him in a hushed voice, a hand on Barry’s shoulders in comfort when it looks like Barry is about to cry. Iris watches the whole thing in confusion until she sees Barry reach into the bag and lift something out of it.

Iris instantly recognizes the shirt with the pretty floral design as one that belongs to Nora. With a sudden force Iris realizes that her dad is giving Barry back Nora’s clothes from when she stayed with them.

With a lump in her throat from the cry she’s desperately trying to push down Iris slips away before either her dad or Barry sees her.

Barry finds her later that night sitting on their bed crying, clutching one of Nora’s shirts to her chest.

She felt silly at being caught in such a state. She’d taken great lengths to keep Barry from seeing her cry. She didn’t want to keep giving him reasons to be worried about her. But also the truth was she wanted to deal with her pain on her own like she has always done before. Sometimes opening up, and allowing another person to help with your pain felt scarier then dealing with it on your own.

As Barry approached she tried to quickly wipe the tears away, to conceal the evidence of her breakdown he’d just witnessed. Barry knelt before her keeping the two of them at eye level. His hands reached out to wrap around hers.

She waited for the words of concern. Maybe a suggestion she go see a therapist. She dreaded looking in his eyes to see the pity there for her. But when Barry’s fingers on her jaw gently directed her to look at him what she saw in those green eyes was understanding.

“I know its been a month but,” Barry smiled at her softly. “Sometimes it feels like Nora is still here.”

Iris could feel a cry lodged in her throat so she nodded instead.

Barry took a deep breath. His gaze going inward for a moment to gather his thoughts and Iris knew he’d been struggling as much as she had the past couple months. Both of them concealing their hurt as to not burden the other.

“When I run, when I feel the electricity of the Speedforce flowing through my body, Its like…Its like she’s still here.”

“Is that hard?” Iris asked, her heart aching for her husband.

“Yes and no,” Barry gave her a look that Iris understood because she’d been struggling the same way, “I miss her and its nice to know she didn’t completely disappear.”

“Yeah, I know.” Iris made a sound half way between a laugh and a sob. “I see her other places too. Everywhere I go there’s something that reminds me of her.”

“I see her in you too,” Barry cupped Iris’s face with his hands. “The way you smile, the way you talk. She was so much like you.”

“Stubborn you mean,” The corners of her mouth lifted up into a smile.

“She got that from the both of us,” Barry pressed his foreheads against hers. “She came by it naturally.”

Iris giggled making Barry break out into a full grin.

“I see her when you laugh too,” Barry rubbed his nose along hers making her giggle even more.

“I see her when I look at your eyes,” Iris spoke and for the first time in weeks she looked into Barry’s green hazel eyes. The same color as Nora’s.

Barry then fully pulled Iris to him. With a sigh of relief Iris fell into the protection of her husband’s arms. For the first time since losing Nora she didn’t feel like she had to face things alone. The warmth of Barry’s body and his words reminding her that Nora wasn’t truly gone.

She’s still here, Iris thought to her as she held on tighter to her husband, and for now that’s enough.


End file.
